


The Potion Makes the Rules

by SquadOfCats



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Amortentia, Fluff, M/M, Not Epilogue Compliant, One Shot, Swearing, There is a bit of swearing but otherwise this is very tame and floofy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-18 03:44:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10608603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquadOfCats/pseuds/SquadOfCats
Summary: When Harry smells Amortentia for the first time in sixth year, he is entranced by the scent: green apples, snow on pine trees, and something else...something seductive and familiar he recognizes, but can't place. Eight years later, when he gets into a fistfight in the middle of the Ministry, Draco Malfoy head-butts him in the face and suddenly Harry knows exactly what he smelled in the potion all those years ago.





	

**Author's Note:**

> These characters don't belong to me. This work is unbetaed. The opening scene is (very loosely) based on the amortentia potions class in HBP.
> 
> Please enjoy this silly bit of fluff -- complete with uncalled-for fisticuffs, an ice bear, and *spoiler* A SMOOCH!

_**6th Year** _

Fumes rose up out of a dozen bubbling cauldrons and filled the Potions classroom with a soft and dreamy haze. Harry sat at the workbench with Ron and Hermione and felt, perhaps for the first time in this room, wonderfully relaxed. There was no greasy-haired professor lurking in the shadows. There were no complicated instructions to follow, no secret old notes from the Half-Blood Prince to hide. Today’s potion was already complete.

Harry’s eyes glazed over, pleasantly distracted, as he stared at the gold cauldron on the table in front of him. The shimmering, iridescent liquid inside gently roiled and swelled in bubbles of milky rainbow and mother of pearl, and the most luxuriously scented steam drifted from the concoction as it simmered. Harry felt magnificently drunk on it. Vaguely, he thought perhaps he might skip his next class. Surely, this was more important. He might sit here for a while longer – perhaps an hour, or a week, or the rest of his life – subsisting on the sweet fumes of the potion.

Amortentia.

Ron nudged his elbow into Harry’s ribs twice to get his attention. Harry blinked. Turned. Ron grinned, wide and lazy, and Harry grinned back.

“Professor?” Across the classroom, Parvati Patil raised her hand. “Does the potion smell like the person we’re in love with? What if we’re not in love with anyone yet?”

Harry listened to Slughorn’s response with interest and as much focus as he could spare.

“Not necessarily, Ms. Patil. The potion smells like whatever is most attractive to you.” The professor chuckled good-naturedly and folded his hands together. “Of course, if you are in love, it is likely that the potion will smell like things associated with the object of your heart’s desire!”

Satisfied with the answer, Harry settled back into the cloud of amortentia. So much more than scent, it touched every one of his senses. From his chair, the fumes swirled together and smelled like all three of the scents at once, each of them mingling and lulling him into drowsy happiness. He smiled to himself as he let the perfect blend of them surround him. Although, he couldn’t decide which he liked better: all of them together, or each experience separated.

Harry stood and leaned in close over the cauldron and drew in a deep breath through his nose. Each scent swept over him, individually defined and distinct, one by one. And that was perfect too.

First, a rich breath of pine. But more than that. It was layered with something metallic and tingly, something cold, like soft, fresh snow. That was it. Snow on pines. It made Harry feel peaceful and adventurous all at once – the serenity and thrill of walking an undiscovered forest path on a clear winter day.

Then, after that, the apples. Green apples. That one felt playful, somehow, and unexpectedly so. The scent teased him and forced his mouth up into a smile. Mostly tart, but a little sweet.

But then, the third. The third, he couldn’t identify no matter how hard he tried. Harry closed his eyes and leaned in closer to the potion, his glasses nearly slipping off his face and into the cauldron. He pressed his eyes shut and inhaled the third scent. A little bit of a waxy smell, with a little bit of an anti-septic, chemical tinge. And on top of that, a little bit of a spicy, minty sort of smell. It was subtle, and yet it filled him with emotion just as strongly as the other two. This one challenged him, pushed him, made him feel brave and reckless, made him want to jump on a broomstick, or punch someone, or kiss someone, or start a fight. It was…familiar. Harry knew he had smelled this before, but couldn’t place it.

When the lesson ended, Harry nearly whimpered with pitiful sadness. He didn’t want to leave! He turned his head and craned his neck as they walked out of the classroom, so desperate to get one last glimpse of the brilliant potion, he barely even noticed when he bumped right into Malfoy on his way out the door. Harry mumbled, “Sorry,” and Malfoy sneered at him, but Harry was so focused to holding onto the scent and feeling of amortentia, he ignored it.

As he walked down the hallway, away from the classroom, the drunken cloud in his mind dissipated. His thoughts cleared and sharpened a bit more with every step, and he shook his head as if to shake out the lingering effects. He kept his head down, eyes glued to the ground in front of him, and hoped Ron and Hermione didn’t pay too much attention to him.

Hermione cleared her throat. “Well. That was really something, wasn’t it?” She sounded just as confused and shaken by the strange potion as he felt.

“Yeah. Wow.” Ron nodded. “Something.”

It was embarrassing, was what it was. Embarrassing, and a bit disturbing how the potion could cloud his mind so thoroughly.

And yet, he still remembered the delicious scents, the way they made him feel. Snow on pines. Green apples. And something else, something he couldn’t place. With clear thoughts, Harry’s mind drifted back to that third scent many times over the rest of that day, but no matter how hard he tried to remember where he’d smelled it before, he never could place it.

 

**_Eight Years Later_ **

A thin folder landed on Harry’s desk with a flat plop. Startled, Harry twitched and sloshed a bit of his tea over the side of the mug. It landed on his thigh, and the stain quickly spread across his khaki trousers. Brilliant. What a perfect start to the day. He looked up to find his boss staring at him.

“Morning, Potter.”

“Morning, Robards.” Harry put the cup down before he could make a further mess of himself. “How are you?”

Robards ignored the question and instead pointed a thick finger at the folder he’d dropped. “Assignment for you.”

_Please be fieldwork. Please be fieldwork_ , Harry thought as he pulled the manila folder across the desk and flipped it open to scan the report. For weeks now, ever since he’d been injured on his last big case, Harry had been stuck inside on desk duty. Nonstop paperwork and research threatened to kill him faster and more painfully than the transmogrification torture that had landed him in St. Mungo’s for three days. What he wouldn’t give for a real case: a serial killer or a Death Eater on the run, Merlin, he’d even take a potions’ smuggling ring at this point! But the thin folder did not promise much, and Harry quickly scanned the single page contained inside.

Damn. Somehow, Harry managed to refrain from groaning and smacking his head against the desk. Robards had managed to give him the one assignment worse than paperwork.

“Request from the Department of International Magical Cooperation.” Harry nodded. “Got it.”

“They’ve got some big, important diplomat coming in for secret meetings and need an auror to prep the room. Standard security detail. You know the drill.”

Harry did know the drill. He’d been called in to assist with these sorts of things before. All of the details of the request, handwritten in a sharp, precise script, were simple and clearly outlined. Everything was normal and in order, right down to the signature of the requesting authority: Deputy Junior Consul, Draco Malfoy.

“Problem?” Robards asked, and his tone suggested that if there was a problem, he’d counter with an even bigger one.

Harry clapped the folder shut and pushed the chair back from the desk. “Not at all. I’ll go now.”

It wasn’t a lie, precisely. Harry didn’t have a _problem_ with Malfoy. These days, no one really had a _problem_ with Malfoy. After the war, Harry had spoken at his trial and had hoped that would be that. It wasn’t. Malfoy was not content to hide away in his manor, as Harry had rather expected him to do. Instead, he was determined to make amends and redeem himself, to claim the spot in wizarding society he thought, by rights, belonged to him. No one wanted to hand it to him, of course, and so Malfoy clawed his way up out of the muck and took it. Almost admirable, Harry had to admit.

As Harry walked the long corridors of the Ministry building, out of the MLE offices and down to the lifts, he thought that perhaps there were several rather positive things about Malfoy he had to admit. Like, that even though everyone first suspected him of nothing but gross ambition, Malfoy had actually turned out to be a rather decent sort. He’d apologized to everyone he could find, Harry included. He’d challenged his old prejudices, done away with his old beliefs. He was good at his job as a junior diplomat, and obviously cared about international magical laws and relations. He got along well with most everyone, showed up to the occasional pub night at the Leaky, chatted amicably with Hermione about House Elf rights whenever they crossed paths in the atrium, and although he was still pretentious and had a bit of a reputation for being difficult to work with, he was all-around charming and witty and creative and pleasant. All good things, objectively.

Harry knew that. He knew all of that. Just like he was sure that Malfoy also knew that Harry himself was a skilled auror, and less self-righteous than he used to be, and had learned how to take a joke and laugh at himself sometime since the end of the war. Each of them knew the other had changed. Everyone around them knew it. Everyone around them accepted it.

So why, whenever they got within a hundred feet of each other, did Harry and Malfoy immediately revert back to their second-year selves and start flinging either insults or hexes at each other? Neither of them could help it! They’d had more than one fight in the halls of the Ministry, and one duel at Luna Lovegood’s twenty-first birthday party – particularly memorable for Malfoy’s inspired use of a jelly-legs jinx while in close proximity to a swimming pool, and for Harry’s ability to cast a solid bat-bogey hex even while wandless…and underwater. Since that incident, both tacitly agreed it was best to avoid or ignore each other, due to their complete inability to act like adults while in each other’s presence.

The lift dinged and the door slid open, revealing the offices of the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Harry flipped open the folder and checked the meeting room. Circe Hall. One of the department’s nicest meeting spaces. Some important negotiations must be in the works, if that’s where Malfoy had decided to host the Ambassador from…Harry glanced at the form again. Finland.

He went directly to the meeting room, knocked on the door, waited, knocked again, felt rather foolish standing in the pristine diplomatic visitor’s center while wearing tea-stained trousers and two days’ worth of stubble, and then decided _fuck it_ and pushed inside.

A hive of underling staff and interns scurried about the room, hovering chairs into place, arranging the table, and placing massive blue and white flower arrangements in prime decorative spots. Light shone down from the high glass ceiling and illuminated the polished shine of the marble floor, the delicate crystal of the central chandelier, and the gleaming white blond hair of Draco Malfoy.

In a finely-tailored pair of dove gray business robes, he stood in the middle of it all, straight-backed and stuck-up, and snipped orders at his minions. “No! Centered! I want it centered. Marietta, does that arrangement look centered to you? Perhaps your head has been knocked askew? Move it an inch and a half to the left, and turn it fifteen degrees clockwise so the hydrangea bloom is in the front. And Jacob! How many times have I said, the name tags need to be placed to the left of each welcome packet! Not the right! I swear, all of you were dropped off of very high brooms when you were children.”

Harry grit his teeth and clenched his jaw, the sound of Malfoy’s crisp, posh voice bossing and ordering everyone around already riling him up. Clearly, Malfoy was in a mood today. Best to just get this over with before it came to blows.

“Malfoy!” Harry called over Malfoy’s stream of commands and insults. “You asked for auror assistance?”

Malfoy froze, the muscles down his back and shoulders tensing. He whirled around, glared at Harry, and then rolled his gray eyes. They were the same shade as his robes, Harry couldn’t help but notice.

“Yes.” Malfoy sneered. “And oh, what a delight. They sent me you.”

“Let’s just get this over with.” Harry stalked forward and bit back the long list of insults he wanted to hurl. “Standard security and surveillance check?”

“Standard?” Malfoy’s eyes widened and his upper lip curled. “Not standard! You’d better give me better than ‘standard’, Potter. I’ve got a lot riding on this meeting, and if your lackluster performance mucks it up for me, I’ll consider it a personal insult.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “As if you don’t consider my very existence a personal insult.”

One of Malfoy’s eyebrows quirked up, and he conceded, “Fair point, Potter.”

“I’ll get started.” Harry walked to the far end of the room, as far away from Malfoy as he could get, and pulled out his wand. With a flick and a few muttered spells, he began his task of reinforcing wards and checking for illegal surveillance charms that could compromise the secrecy of Malfoy’s Very Important meeting.

A voice directly behind his right ear made him jump, and Harry almost followed his instinct to whirl around and punch the personal space invader. “Make sure you’re checking for bugs. We’ve had problems with foreign networks trying to spy on our meetings, and the last auror would have missed it if I hadn’t reminded him to check again.”

Jaw tight, Harry forced out, “Mr. Malfoy, I assure you I will take every precaution while preparing this room for you.”

“Oh, well then!” Malfoy's voice dripped sarcasm. “I feel so very assured!”

Harry glared over his shoulder. “Will you let me do my job, please?”

Eyes wide, Malfoy raised his hands in bristled, offended surrender. “Fine.” He left to go yell at some interns. Harry got back to it.

As Harry made his way around the room, he really did do an exceptional job at reinforcing the wards and ensuring everything was safe and secure. Partly because he was an excellent auror and took pride in his job. And partly because, much as he sometimes wanted to push Malfoy into the Ministry fountains during rush hour, he didn’t actually want to see him fail. So he scanned every flowerpot and every decorative flag that had been brought in for the event, just in case it had been tampered with.

In a place of honor, a table along the eastern window held two small flower arrangements, and in between them a large brown bear, carved entirely from a block of ice. Really? Harry huffed and shook his head. An ice carving? It was a bit over the top.

Although, as Harry looked closer, he had to admit it was elegant and well-crafted. The bear’s frozen eyes were wide and expressive, and subtle lines down its back evoked soft fur where there was only solid ice. It was beautiful, really. It obviously had a stasis charm on it to keep it from melting, but Harry reached out his wand to check if anything else had been done to it.

“Don’t touch that!” Malfoy dropped what he was doing and rushed across the room. “Potter, don’t touch that! It’s very delicate!”

“Malfoy, you wanted me to check and double check everything! But you don’t want me to check this? What if it’s been tampered with?”

“I know it hasn’t. Just leave it alone before you smash it, you oaf.”

“How do you know it hasn’t been tampered with?”

“I just know! I know the vendor!”

“Malfoy! You really want to be that reckless and irresponsible? There are any number of moments someone could have slipped a listening charm onto it! You really want to risk that?”

Malfoy groaned. A single lock of hair had slipped from its polished styling to hang loose on his forehead, and a tiny blush of pink tinged his cheeks. His gray eyes blazed bright. “Why do you always have to be like this? I told you! Leave it alone!”

“No!” Harry snapped on instinct, his inner twelve year old taking over. He whirled back around and pointed his wand at the stupid, ridiculous ice bear. “I’m going to do my job and check it!”

Malfoy’s eyes went wide and then viciously narrow just before he dove sideways and tackled Harry away from the table. A sharp elbow jabbed into Harry’s rib cage as Malfoy’s whole body slammed into him.

“Oy!” Harry shouted, the indignant sound practically knocked out of him. Harry snarled and twisted his arm free to push the pointy bastard away, but Malfoy shoved him back.

So Harry threw a punch that socked him right in the jaw.

Scandalized and furious, Malfoy touched long, elegant fingers to the bruised spot and stared at Harry for half a second. He whispered, “You son of a…” before he launched himself forward, driven by years of pent-up aggression. Harry met him measure for measure. They grappled, scrambled for purchase, pounded each other on the back and scratched at each other’s robes. Harry managed to get in a good punch to Malfoy’s solar plexus, but Malfoy, the dirty bastard, countered by lifting up and head-butting Harry in the damn face. His hard skull rammed into Harry’s cheek and nose, and as the pain shot through him, Harry gasped in a sharp breath and that was when his whole world dropped out from under him.

That smell.

All the fight drained out of him in an instant. With Malfoy’s hair an inch away from his face, he breathed in again to be sure. That was it. He would recognize it anywhere. A little bit chemical-y, a little bit spicy-minty. Subtle. Familiar. For years, he’d thought about that mysterious and invigorating third scent in his amortentia and wondered in vain where he knew it from.

It was hair gel.

More specifically, and most disturbingly: it was Draco Malfoy’s hair gel.

Panting, Harry fell back from the fight and staggered away. He stared at Malfoy, who for a moment still looked like a wild-eyed predator who wanted to rip his throat out, but who soon faded into tired defiance, his chin jutting out, his cheeks and neck pink with fight. He was…he was…

He was beautiful. Harry didn’t know how he had missed it all these years, but there it was. Slender frame, strong shoulders, all long elegant lines. From the soft, fullness of his lips to the sharp, aristocratic cut of his nose and cheekbones, the stormy gray of his bright eyes to the moonlight white of his skin, he was gorgeous.

Fascinating. And strange.

Harry stared at Malfoy for a long moment, as if seeing him for the first time, while the scent of the hair gel lingered in his nostrils and made him feel alive and unafraid, albeit very thoroughly confused.

Fine eyebrows drawn together, Malfoy shook his head at Harry’s enchanted gawking, as if to ask if Harry had gone mad.

Harry wasn’t sure how to answer that question, so instead he mumbled, “I have to go.” Tripping over his feet as he hurried past a gaggle of horrified interns, he fled the room.

***~*~***

An hour later, after Harry had spent a fair bit of time groaning and pulling at his hair and thudding his head against a wall, and also a bit of time struggling through some confused thinking, he found himself overcome by a classically Gryffindor impulse for doing. He had to know. The evidence had been, quite literally, shoved in his face, but before he could think or reason, before he could decide anything, he had to know for sure.

He marched back down to the Department of International Magical Cooperation and beelined directly for Malfoy’s office.

_Draco’s office_. He tried the name out in his head and found that it sat there rather pleasantly. He didn’t hate it, anyway.

He knocked and stepped inside when Malfoy shouted out a weary, “Come in.” He shut the door behind him and waved a stiff, awkward hello to Malfoy, who sat at his desk with a pile of paperwork.

He glared at Harry, but it lacked any real threat. “Come back to punch me some more?”

“No. Why? You want to head-butt me again?”

Malfoy stared for a second, but then his eyes fluttered and he snorted a laugh. “Sorry. I’ve been under a lot of stress lately. My behavior with you was, as per usual, completely uncalled for.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, too.” Harry nodded and then mustered the courage to voice a suspicion. “That ice sculpture that you got all worked up about. How did you know it couldn’t have been tampered with? Did you...you didn’t carve it, did you?”

Malfoy dropped his eyes. His nostrils flared the slightest bit, and he gave a tiny shrug of his shoulders.

“Seriously?” Harry laughed. “You’ve taken up artistic ice carving as a hobby?”

“Merlin, no! I taught myself how to do it for this meeting. I thought it might impress the dignitaries.”

Harry stared at him, mouth hanging open. “You taught yourself…” He shook his head. “Malfoy, you need a vacation.”

“I know. Trust me. I know.” Malfoy fell silent for a second and then asked, “So why are you here, Potter?”

“To apologize.” Harry shrugged, blood suddenly thrumming. “And to talk to you about something.”

“Go on, then.”

Harry nodded. His complete acceptance of how ridiculous this was coupled with his determination to do this for better or worse and slowly shaped into confidence. Whatever else happened, he had to know for sure. “Remember how you used to wear your hair when we were kids? All slicked back with gel?”

Malfoy scoffed. “Don’t remind me.”

“You don’t wear it like that anymore.”

“Obviously.”

“Do you still wear the gel?” Harry asked. “Like, a bit of it?”

Malfoy blinked, taken-aback. “I use a bit of product to style my hair, yes. I know that’s a foreign concept to you, with the niffler’s nest you call hair.”

Harry ignored the insult. That was it, then. Malfoy had just confirmed exactly what Harry suspected. How was he supposed to respond to this knowledge, precisely? He didn’t know. He pursed his lips, looked down at the floor, and nodded, nodded, nodded, while he tried to rationalize his thoughts.

But then he decided, why bother? He was already well and truly fucked. Might as well go all in!

“Fuck.” Harry breathed a deranged laugh, almost angry. He so wanted to be angry about this, but couldn’t quite muster it because there was, after all, something terribly amusing and poetic about it. “Fuckity fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuck.”

Malfoy stared at him, posh face bewildered underneath a tight mask of control. “What is it? Have you finally gone mad? Should I alert the papers? You know, we all assumed you would snap years ago.”

Harry grinned and stepped in closer to Malfoy’s desk. “So, in my amortentia, I’ve always known two of the three scents: green apples, and snow on pines. But there has always been this third scent I’ve never been able to place. Until this morning. I finally figured it out.” He stared at Malfoy, letting the anticipation build. “It’s your stupid, fucking poncy hair gel.”

That managed to put a crack in Malfoy’s cool aloofness. His lips parted in surprise and his eyes widened.

Harry felt far too satisfied with himself. It was shocking, how right it felt when he declared, “I think we should go on a date.”

That shattered the rest of Malfoy’s control. “What?!”

“Potion says so!” Harry cut him off before he could protest. “I don’t make the rules! The potion makes the rules! Apparently I’m in love with you!”

His voice screeching and much higher than normal, Malfoy shouted, “That’s not how amortentia works!”

“Well,” Harry conceded, “then I’m attracted to you, at least! Have been since I was sixteen!” He shook his head and laughed. “Fuck. Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? All this time, we haven’t been able to grow up and stop fighting? It’s because I secretly want to shag you, apparently!”

Malfoy looked affronted. And adorable. His mouth pinched in tight surprise, his nostrils flared, and a vivid pink blush soaked his cheeks.

“Bit of a shock for me too, believe me.” Harry took one more look Malfoy’s long legs, his soft lips, and his ridiculously endearing blush, and admitted, “Although I am getting used to the idea rather quickly.”

Finally, Malfoy remembered how to speak and tried to say something to stop this nonsense. “Potter…”

Harry, who felt a bit deranged, as if he might be losing at least a small part of his mind, gave him no such chance. “Date!” He shouted. “We’re going on a date! I’m taking you to dinner! Tonight! Seven o’clock! Wear dress robes!” And Harry really did not want to hear Malfoy talk them both out of this, so he turned before he had a chance to see reason and made for the door.

Behind him, Malfoy stood and walked around to the front of the desk. Harry tried to ignore it when he spoke, but the gentle question in his voice when he said, “Wait. Potter?” made Harry stop. He turned back around.

There was nothing between them now. Only open space. Harry’s heart quickened.

With a strange, hopeful hesitancy, Malfoy asked, “You wouldn’t happen to be partial to treacle tart, would you?”

Harry nodded. “Yeah. It’s my favorite. Why?”

Malfoy closed his eyes and sucked in a deep, bracing breath. He looked like he would rather dive headfirst into a herd of hippogriffs before admitting it, but he kept his eyes down and said quietly, “My amortentia has always been broomstick polish, lilies, and…” He shook his head, opened his eyes, and faced Harry, bravery and disdain and a hundred things more tender in his eyes. “And treacle tart.”

Harry stared for a moment, taking in the significance of each of those scents and of the admission as a whole.

And then the grin stretched across his face. But Malfoy still looked so nervous, so serious. Harry pinched his lips shut to force it to stay in, but a laugh snorted out through his nose. He clamped a hand over his mouth, but a giggle snuck through. And then another. And then it all burst out of him in loud, obscene laughter. It doubled him over and he laughed into his knees, gasping for air and with tears streaming down his face. Yes, he was most certainly losing his mind.

All this time! Both of them! Another burst of laughter surged through him. All this bloody time!

“Stop cackling!” Malfoy – Draco – demanded. “It’s not attractive on you!”

Harry stood up, wiped at his eyes, and tried to catch his breath. Malfoy was trying and failing to hide a smile of his own.

“It’s not, is it?” Through thin shakes of breathy laughter, Harry asked, “What is attractive on me, then?”

“Silence,” Draco snapped with a cheeky glare. Harry laughed again. Draco dropped his eyes and affected a casual shrug. “And…maybe those navy blue robes you wore to the St. Mungo’s charity event last season.”

Blazing with joyful bravery, Harry grinned and closed the distance between them in two quick strides. He grabbed a fistful of Draco’s robes in one hand, cupped Draco’s cheek with the other, and pressed their lips together in a warm, sure kiss.

So soft. Harry moved his mouth against Draco’s, nibbled at his bottom lip, and smiled into the kiss. Every other piece of Draco was sharp edges and firm lines, but his lips were perfectly, sweetly soft.

When Harry ended the kiss and pulled away, all too soon for either of them, Draco whimpered a tiny sound of want, high in his throat. But he quickly caught himself, huffed, and pretended to be scandalized.

The sound imprinted itself on Harry’s brain, though, just as the scent of apples, and hair gel, and snow on pines had all those years ago. He brushed Draco’s cheek with the backs of his knuckles and vowed to himself that he would find many ways to get Draco to make that sound again.

With a grin, Harry said, “I’ll see you at seven, you pompous git.”

Draco smirked, though his mouth threatened to lift into something sweeter. “I look forward to it, you insufferable wanker.”

With that, Harry rushed out the door before he could change his mind and linger all day. There were still four more hours until their date would begin. Harry popped into Robard’s office to tell him he’d taken ill and had to take the rest of the day off, and then he ran home. He need to make a dinner reservation. And those navy blue dress robes were crammed into the back of his wardrobe; he only hoped he had time to get them laundered. He somehow suspected Draco would forgive him if he had to wear something else…but only after giving him merciless shit for it. Harry laughed to himself as he rushed to the floo. No matter how much things changed between them from this point forward, Harry felt confident that some things – like their penchant for hurling relentless, over-the-top snarky insults at each other – would always stay the same.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this bit of silliness. You're welcome to follow my tumblr: http://norelationtoatticus.tumblr.com/ I don't post much fic, but sometimes I share absurd head canons and overly-detailed thoughts on Harry Potter things.


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